Japanís prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is to take a three-month pay cut following revelations that the government paid dozens of people to ask senior politicians easy questions at town hall-style public meetings. Mr Abe, who became premier at the end of September, said he would return three months of his annual salary of •41.5m (£177,000). The chief cabinet secretary, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, and the education minister, Bunmei Ibuki, are among four other cabinet members who will forfeit part of their salaries. Launched in 2001 by Mr Abeís predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, the meetings were lauded as a long-overdue experiment in participatory democracy. But a report published this week by a cabinet office commission found that the meetings, each of which cost millions of yen to organise, had been micromanaged to cast government policies in the best possible light.... http://www.guardian.co.uk

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has returned to Gaza from Egypt after being stranded at the border for several hours amid chaotic scenes. But he crossed the border at Rafah without tens of millions of dollars in donations, which Israel says go to the funding of "terrorist operations". The money was left on the Egyptian side with Mr Haniya's aides. The earlier closure of Rafah by Israel sparked an angry reaction from Hamas militants who stormed the post. A number of people were reportedly injured when the militants went on a rampage, occupying the terminal and firing shots in the air and at the building. Mr Haniya crossed into Gaza several hours later, following hours of intense negotiations, that involved Egyptian mediators....http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6181475.stm

At least 25 people, mostly Shiites, were freed in northern Baghdad Thursday, hours after being kidnapped, an Interior Ministry official said. They were released in the Basateen neighborhood at about 5 p.m., the official said, adding that he could not say how many people were still missing from the earlier raid. Armed men in outdated Iraqi National Police uniforms kidnapped as many as 30 Iraqis in a central Baghdad shopping area Thursday morning, an Interior Ministry official said. The kidnappers arrived in 10 vehicles and rounded up shop owners, street vendors and bystanders in the Sinagh area where car parts and oil are bought and sold, the official said. The gunmen did not appear to target any specific sectarian group, abducting both Shiites and Sunnis, police told Reuters. Previous mass kidnappings by gunmen wearing uniforms prompted the Iraq government to issue redesigned military and police uniforms earlier this year....http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/14/iraq.main/index.html?eref=rss_world

As President Bush weighs new strategies for Iraq, the Army's top general warned Thursday that his force "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves. Noting the strain put on the force by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said he wants to grow his half-million-member Army beyond the 30,000 troops already added in recent years. Though he didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time and commitment by the nation, noting some 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year. Officials also need greater authority to tap into the National Guard and Reserve, a force once set up as a strategic reserve but now needed as an integral part of the nation's deployed forces, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces....http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/14/national/main2266367.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2266367

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday inspected Russia's top-of-the line intercontinental ballistic missiles, hailing their ability to penetrate prospective missile defenses. Putin flew by helicopter to a forested area near Teikovo, a small town about 150 miles northeast of Moscow, to visit a unit of newly deployed Topol-M missiles mounted on mobile launchers. After watching the new missiles, Putin said their deployment was a "serious step forward in strengthening Russia's defense capability." "It has a stronger survivability, faster launch and an ability to penetrate any prospective missile defense," Putin said of the new weapon in televised remarks. Speaking on a trip to the northern Plesetsk cosmodrome later Thursday, Putin described the Topol-M as a "21st century weapon" and said that it would ensure a "long-term efficiency of Russia's nuclear forces," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2726846

The White House on Thursday defended Bush's rare use of a body count to describe Iraqi insurgent deaths as a way to show Americans that U.S. troops are fighting hard in Iraq. Bush said on Wednesday on a visit to the Pentagon that U.S. and Iraqi forces had killed or captured 5,900 of the enemy during the months of October, November and early December.It was a rare use of a body count by the president and came after public opinion polls said many Americans are concerned about rising U.S. casualties and believe the United States is losing the war in Iraq.White House spokesman Tony Snow said one reason Bush gave the body count number was to offset concern about U.S. casualties and deaths that included 103 in October alone....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061214/ts_nm/iraq_usa_bush_dc